Meet the Press (5/25/08) Does Sen. Clinton's campaign suffer from sexism?

[Poll_Blind]

Run time: 07:07 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqC2e2NCYMQ   Posted on YouTube: May 27, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: May 27, 2008 By DU Member: Poll_Blind Views on DU: 2441

 

Sunday May 25 2008 edition of Meet The Press was on fire with very good analysis...

MR. RUSSERT: Maureen Dowd, "misogynist," "gender bias," it seems as though the Clintons are being--trying very hard to lay that out as a premise for Hillary Clinton's difficulties in this primary contest.

MS. DOWD: I think it's poppycock, really. I mean, Hillary Clinton has allowed women to visualize a woman as president for the first time, in the way Colin Powell allowed people to visualize an African-American. And she dominated the debates, she, she proved that a woman can have as much tenacity and gall as any man on earth. We, we can visualize her facing down Ahmadinejad. But the thing is, Hillary hurts feminism when she uses it as opportunism. And she has a history of covering up her own mistakes behind sexism. She did it with health care right after health care didn't pass. She didn't admit that she was abrasive or mismanaged it or blew off good advice or was too secretive. She said that she was a Rorschach test for gender and that many men thought of a female boss they didn't like when they looked at her. And now she's doing the same thing, and it's very--you know, in a way it's the moral equivalent of Sharptonism. It's this victimhood and angry and turning women against men and saying that the men are trying to take it away from us, in the same way she's turning Florida and Michigan and riling up and comparing them to suffragettes and slaves. And it's very damaging to feminism.

--snip--

PB

[klook]

1. I thought this exchange between Ifill & Goodwin was brilliant also

GWEN IFILL: "...assuming she's trying to get out of this campaign with something intact and with some sort of power base intact, her audience is the truly, deeply angry women out there, who I run into, and I know who you hear from, who say, 'How could you do this to us?' I talked to a woman who said she had planned to dance at an inauguration of the first woman president before she died, and now she'll never be able to do it. They believe that Hillary Clinton is not the beginning of the road, but the end of the road for women with a shot at the White House.

My thinking is, we didn't know two years, or we never heard of, a couple years ago that Barack Obama would be in this position. We didn't know eight years ago that she was going to be in the Senate. So things change a lot. But the despair and the anger and the fury about this is real. And that's what she's speaking to."

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: "But, you know, despair and sadness is understandable, but resentments, when you let resentments fester, I think it poisons a part of you.

And what you don't want women to take away, instead of seeing her as a champion who actually did some great things for women, see her instead as a victim, it doesn't help the next women coming along. So I just wish those resentments could go away."

I do hope all the (as Gwen Ifill put it) "truly, deeply angry women out there" will get back on their feet after this disappointment and direct their anger at the real misogynists in this election, the Republicans.

[chervilant]

8. Really?

Are you impressed by the countless Obama supporters who have devoted much time and energy to villifying Clinton? Do they sound like "the change we hope to see in this world"?!?

And, why has Obama not come forward to encourage his supporters to remain positive and collectively devote their energy to insuring his victory?

Indeed, the more inflammatory, anti-Clinton comments I read from Obama supporters, the more I despair that the level of political discourse in this nation has irretrievably become the soiled playground of puerile guttersnipes.

[klook]

11. So...

you think we should be fighting other Democrats instead of Republicans?

May I suggest that is not a helpful attitude?

[chervilant]

16. What?!?!

hmmmmm... I see that you have completely misunderstood my post. Read it again. I don't advocate that ANYONE fight ANYONE. May I suggest that bipartisan divisiveness or any other puerile political hackery is neither effective nor necessary.

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[andres hunter]

15. Goodwin is a wingnut

We all know that.

[chervilant]

2. Hmmmmm....

Ms Dowd need only visit DU to find the countless posts that villify Senator Clinton AND her supporters. These posts are replete with such savory bon mots as 'bitch, cunt, whore, ball-buster, delusional, racist, hillbot' and a plethora of adjurations that she tuck tail and go home.

And, oh, the sweet irony that Dowd dismisses the Clintons' acknowledgement of this rampant sexism and misogyny as "poppycock"!

Perhaps Ms. Dowd needs to look at her own misogyny...

[R Merm]

3. I agree

Many of the posters on DU have treated Clinton worse then any repug has ever done.

[Frisbee]

4. Please keep in mind...

The Mrs. Clinton hasn't exactly treated fellow Democrats too well either.

[chervilant]

7. Oh, yes...

the classic justification for bad behavior. I thought we put such petty "h/she did it first/worst" crap away when we became adults!

[Frisbee]

10. Where did I say it was acceptable...

It is amazing how people here read exactly what they want to into others post, even things that aren't there. But if you're going to call people out for how Hillary has been treated, you might also want to look at how she has behaved, and treaded the other democratic candidates. Nah, I guess you don't.

[chervilant]

17. Let's hope

you have more to offer than this feeble "I didn't mean it the way you thought I did" argument. There is no justification for the vulgar, puerile verbal attacks predominating our current political discourse. If you wish to pursue this line of argument, please note that I did not once justify Clinton supporters attacking Obama supporters, either.

The manipulative Corporate Megalomaniacs are laughing their asses off as they watch the rampant, destructive infighting they've nurtured from the get-go. I find it disheartening that so many are drinking this kool-aid--FAR more disheartening that they don't even realize it!

I hope the majority who plan to vote get a clue before it's too late. But, then, my friends all accuse me of supergluing to my face my rose-colored glasses...

[mystieus]

5. .... NO

[stlsaxman]

19. Hey the worst thing i've ever said about her is that she's an

opportunistic right wing corporatist.

where's the hateful sexist vitriol in that?

:shrug:

[dsc]

13. it should also be noted that she took great pains to see the anti catholic rantings of pastor hagee

as something worth mentioning. Turns out it depends on whose ox is being gored.

[Wizard777]

6. No, they suffer from Stupidism as stupid doesm.

[ryanmuegge]

9. Love those redheads.

I don't think many people on DU post misogynistic things about Hillary. I've never seen anybody refer to her as a "cunt" on here. People who criticize her on here do so based largely on substance.

I think there's some truth to Hillary's accusations, though perhaps not in the coverage of this campaign cycle. The mainstream media and the RNC (same thing), however, have used misogyny for several years, since the early days of the Clinton administration, to create a public perception that Hillary is a bitch because she's outspoken and successful (whereas most first ladies before her were not Yale Law grads). The years of relentless personal attacks on Hillary have established a firm, unshakable perception of Hillary as a fake, overbearing bitch that would have certainly killed her in a general election. That said, I do not think, with Democratic voters in the primaries, that gender bias in press coverage negatively impacted her campaign to a large extent. I do not think gender bias is what caused her to lose. If anything, prejudice (of a different variety) has helped her, particularly with the racial prejudice of the cretins in West Virginia, parts of Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. The media, however, did have it in for her in the beginning. They turned their sights on Obama when it was clear that he was going to win, in an attempt to weaken and destroy both Democratic candidates. There was definite bias against Hillary in the beginning, but I did not see much it as focused on gender (at least not explicitly).

[klook]

12. That word was used here. Fortunately

the poster was tombstoned shortly thereafter.

[andres hunter]

14. Russert and Dowd. What pair of unbiased, Hillary-loving journalists

haha! Why didn't they invite Chris Matthews and Tucker Carlson to complete the foursome?